Tips

parchment versus waxed paper

Is there any difference between parchment and waxed paper? Briefly, yes: Parchment has been coated with silicon so it can be used at high temperatures and virtually eliminates the need for greasing a pan. Waxed paper will smoke at high temperatures — and the wax will come off in your food — and is therefore less versatile. I do not recommend swapping the two when lining a cake or roasting pan.

Tips

make your own buttermilk

Out of buttermilk and just itching to make some biscuits or lemon cake? Make your own by mixing 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice with 1 cup of milk and letting it sit until it curdles, about 10 minutes.

Tips

make your own baking powder

To make your own baking powder – some say with fewer metallic undertones than the commercial stuff – mix one part baking soda to one part cornstarch and two parts cream of tartar.

For example: 1/4 teaspoon baking soda + 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar + 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch = 1 teaspoon homemade baking powder.

[Updated 9/2/10 with this equation for clarity]

Recipe

peach cupcakes with brown sugar frosting

My friend Molly — she of the dry-rubbed ribs and apple tarte tatin fame — is leaving us for the kind of love that requires one to take up residence in another state. We’re all mighty bummed out about this and not making it easy on her, not only pouting over her imminent departure at every turn but insisting that she perform her half-day rib magic one last time at her going-away party this weekend.

Recipe

grilled eggplant and olive pizza

A few months ago, a friend called to say that she was telling her office mates about how I love to grill pizza and they set to searching for my recipe on this site and couldn’t find it. Gulp, I said, I’ve just never written it up! From that day forward, I made it my Summer Priority to walk you through pizza on the grill, but I have failed at each turn. Either we’ve made the pizza too late in the evening and the pictures came out anything but appetizing, or the day I decided to try again, it has rained. Seriously. If you want thunderstorms to suddenly threaten, let me promise to make you grilled pizza for dinner.

Recipe

espresso chiffon cake with fudge frosting

Of course, there was also cake. I mean, you didn’t think I’d let my better half’s 35th birthday go by without some homemade, stacked and butter-laden goodness, did you? Right, I didn’t think so.

Recipe

lobster rolls

Alex and I have kind of a thing for Maine, after going to Portland a few years ago and becoming instantly smitten: the weathered barns, the hand-painted signs, wild blueberries and, well, you know the lobster aplenty.

Recipe

summer pea and roasted red pepper pasta salad

I’ve spent way too much time this summer trying to dream up a pasta salad that wasn’t boring, or predictable, or well, you know, the kind of familiar pasta salad territory you don’t need me to go over for you. Because I love a good pasta salad, I just don’t find them often. Usually, they’re missing the freshness you’d expect from something you eat in the summer, when the markets are bursting at the seams with peak-season produce. Often the dressing is a throw-away, either a too-plain vinaigrette or heaps of mayonnaise, lending itself to more of a mass than a salad. So I knew what I didn’t want, I just hadn’t figured out what I did.

Recipe

lighter, airy pound cake

Old-school pound cakes come with their own easily-remembered formula (a pound of butter to a pound of sugar, eggs and flour) with leavening only coming from the air one whips into the batter. But just because it’s the classic way to do it, doesn’t mean mean I don’t think most pound cakes need a little extra creativity to keep them from becoming foamy, forgettable bricks. You can swap out some of the butter for cream cheese, as I do in my favorite non-traditional pound cake recipe, you can add loads of lemon, baking powder, baking soda and buttermilk, rendering something that is impossibly delicious but really, a pound cake in name only, or you can do as James Beard does, and apply smart cake-baking techniques to improve the predictable.

Recipe

plum kuchen

I’ve been curious to make a yeasted coffee cake for years, but every time I got close to making one, I decided against it. Would it be dry or overly-firm? Would it taste too much like bread? How would I know a good one if I’ve probably never had an authentic German kuchen — a general name for a type of sweet, yeasted cake, usually served with coffee — one? I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: I’m a master at talking myself out of things.